The cochlear implant is the first neural prosthesis to achieve the technical success necessary for widespread clinical application. It provides the only effective therapy for restoring sound sensation and speech understanding to the profoundly deaf. Over the past 20 years, dramatic improvements in patients' performance with these devices have been achieved. Currently the average speech understanding score for implanted adults is between 80-100% correct. These advances have derived substantially from the collective efforts of researchers in a broad array of scientific disciplines. This close collaboration and cooperation has been fostered in large part through a series of biennial research conferences, originating with the 1983 Gordon Research Conference on Implantable Auditory Prostheses. These conferences are the only forum in which implant research issues are the sole focus. A 'new' development since the last (2001) meeting is the potential to combine electrical stimulation with other trophic agents to ensure reduced degeneration of neural elements. This development will be discussed at length in the 2003 meeting, and will include both in vitro and in vivo data from experimental animals, together with an overview of the proposed delivery of neurotrophins clinically. The meeting will also focus on new developments in a core theme of this meeting - improved signal processing. This session will critically examine the application of stochastic resonance in signal processing schemes, and examine the potential to employ schemes based on our understanding of processing in the normal cochlea. In addition to these topics we will examine the latest research on (1) the effects of deprivation and stimulation on plasticity of the auditory system, (2) combined acoustic (low frequency) and electric (high frequency) hearing, (3) electrophysiological monitoring in cochlear implants, (4) new innovative electrode arrays for cochlear implants, (5) implant psychophysics, (6) binaural cochlear implants, and (7) "beyond the horizons" talks by experts in fields related to cochlea implants. In sum, the conference will continue the tradition of combining information from a wide range of disciplines in an effort to better understand electrical stimulation of the cochlea and to improve the performance of patients fitted with cochlear implants. This application seeks partial support for this conference, scheduled at the Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, CA on August 17-22, 2003.